Who needs assistants?

From European Voice's Entre-Nous column

9/24/08, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/23/14, 8:49 PM CET

The Parliament’s assistant-free zone.

The European Commission will publish in October a proposal to put the employment of assistants in the European Parliament on a common legal footing. It is a proposal that will be of no interest to Irena Belohorská (pictured), a non-aligned Slovak MEP, who does not have any assistants in Brussels. Her last assistant left over the summer, to join the European Commission.

Nataša Bláhová, a former assistant, is suing the MEP, alleging that she was fired without proper notice and her human dignity was not respected. Nikiforos Diamandouros, the European ombudsman, recommended that 32-year-old Bláhová be awarded €1,000 by the European Parliament as compensation for being forcibly removed by security guards from the Parliament canteen, when she was unaware that her Parliamentary accreditation had already been revoked at Belohorská’s request. Parliament’s authorities rejected the suggestion, saying that the institution “did not act in a manner harmful to the interests of the complainant and there was therefore no call for an apology or compensation to be provided to her”. (On the other hand, it might make an entertaining slot on EuroparlTV: Security Staff Investigation, with lots of shaky camera-work and off-scene shouting.)

An official in Belohorská’s constituency office said that he did not think a replacement would be appointed. A stagiaire is currently forwarding correspondence. Under Parliament’s internal rules, this does not affect the allowance of up to €16,900 that Belohorská is allowed to claim every month to pay her staff.